


no light back home

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Ending, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Reincarnation, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:54:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25579921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Death is dark. Death is dark and empty and numb. He expected cold. Loud. Expected pain.Dying was a billion faces and voices exploding in his brain.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	no light back home

Death is numb.

Not cold, not warm. Not fast or slow.

Floaty.

Timeless. 

Tony has been dead for…

Is he dead? He doesn’t know anymore. Nothing hurts. That’s a sign. Maybe not a good one. Doesn’t seem particularly bad.

Thing is. 

Tony chews, does he chew? Chews the thought.

Thing is, Tony imagined death a hundred times in the last few weeks alone. It was always more…  _ spectacular _ .

Is that a dark thought?

Death is dark. Death is dark and empty and numb. He expected cold. Loud. Expected pain.

Dying was a lot. Dying was excruciating. Flesh and blood and bone melting, electricity sparking in his brain. Death was hot, hot,  _ hot, _ and so fucking  _ loud _ .

Dying was a billion faces and voices exploding in his brain.

Dying was one son coming back to him, and the hope the other was somewhere safe. 

Dying was the woman he loved releasing him, and his best friend, his brother-

That hurts too much, so death moves on. 

Death is silence. True silence. Not a heart beat, not the flow of air, not a stray breath or rustling clothes. 

Death isn’t light. It isn’t dark. 

How is he supposed to find his way home, when there’s not a spotlight to follow? 

He’d take a dying star at this point. 

He knew when he  _ snapped  _ he might not survive it. 

Thing is, he thought death was  _ the end _ . Curtain call, lights out, nothingness achieved. 

Now. 

Now he’s not sure what he is, where he is,  _ if  _ he is. 

He wants to go  _ home _ .

Sometimes.  _ Sometimes _ . 

He thinks he feels things, sometimes. Which, does he have a physical being? One to feel? Is it feeling, memory?

Tony drifts.

The conscious that was Tony drifts.

A hand, rough and grease stained, smelling faintly of aftershave. A hand feels like him and tastes like real ice cream, fresh from the churner. A hand that leads him to a crowded room, to dogfights and wars, but always brings him back to peach cobbler and well-worn linen. 

Tony drifts.

Into cherry ice pops and bubblegum shampoo. Into hands that are sticky, are warm, are so tiny that even Tony in this… not form, engulfs them. Tiny nails, smothered in orange jam and gummy bears, that feel like playing in the mud, in bubbles, in too big heels that click click click into new memories.

Strawberry hair, soft red and scented, silk against this ghostly form. Peppery warmth and delicate, firm, small against his face but strong enough to beat his heart back into rhythm.

Tony, this existence, it blinks.

Is that what it is? It’s very hard to tell, when there is no light. When there is no dark. When there is no metric he knows of by which to measure life and death and existence.

Coming back, breathing again, it’s  _ painful _ .

And slow.

Goddamn, they spent years chasing Thanos and fucking with time.

He died quickly.

Felt like a lifetime

, but died in  _ seconds _ . Minutes.

Coming back is a century. It is his lungs filling with air that is…

Cold?

Maybe hot?

Blistering, freezing.

_ Sharp _ . Sharp like space was when it choked him. Sharp like young wit. Sharp like brown…

Like ice shrouded, sun soaked woods. Honey? No, something tangier. 

Something bitter. Sad? Young, too young, but so  _ old _ . Beaten old. 

Tony doesn’t like that, doesn’t like the brown eyes that haunt this existence.

Blue is nice. Twin to the brown, young-too-old. Ice. Why is there so much  _ ice _ in going home? Young-too-old corn fields and hay. Potatoes? Tony laughs.

He-

He  _ laughs _ . Loud, boisterous. Real.

Blue eyes, brown eyes. Full of ancient grief, in young frames.

Tony wants to go home. “So  _ go _ .”

That wasn’t the deal.

Tony spent ages dying. He died gracefully. Didn’t scream or wail. 

He just.

Snapped his fingers.

“You  _ go. _ Tony. You know this.”

“And you?’ Tony demands. Does he? There’s no sound, no light. Just  _ Steve _ haunting him.

“Are you dead?”

“Maybe, there. I don’t remember.”

Steve isn’t hot or cold. Not gun fire or ice. Steve smells like space, endless, ancient, lonely.

Steve is colorless. Bleached skin, pale hair, empty eyes. 

“How do I go home?”

“C’mon, Tony. You’re smart. Follow the path.”

God, but Steve was always fucking annoying.

“I can’t see it, see anything.”

“So  _ listen _ .”

Coming home, coming back to life.

It’s bleach and clorox. It’s a single drip-drip-drip into his veins. Plasma, steril heels clicking across tiled floors.

Metal. Iron? Copper?

Steel.

Scratchy linens. Tears, hot and salty, dripping on his cheeks, his forehead.

It’s  _ warm _ , where hands and blankets coer him. But his toes are cold.

His throat itches on the inside.

Who knew that was possible. False breaths, machine counted.

Eyes, dark brown, light brown. Blue and blue and  _ his  _ in a tiny face.

God, but it’s  _ bright _ , once he arrives. “Coulda used that when I was finding my way back,” he croaks. 

He is engulfed in love, sweltering and crushing, smelling like days of sweat and grief and hope.


End file.
